Clio Reviews

Pros

The Clio platform is not intended to be a closed, proprietary system. Instead, it forms the foundation for the day to day management of leads, clients, time, documents, and billing, supplemented by almost 200 third party integrations, with new offerings coming on line each month. Clio offers unlimited cloud storage and IOS/Android apps making all of your firm information, clients, and documents available 24/7. Clio continues to innovate and as the leading provider to small/medium law firms throughout the world, I don't worry about whether they will be in business a few years from now. Finally, all, yes all, of your data saved in Clio is easily exportable should you decide to change to a different vendor.

Cons

Clio's growth means that feature changes must be more fully vetted as they are used by more than 150,000 legal professionals. As they broaden their perspective to encompass larger firms, the pace of change may continue to be more deliberate. The movement and management of files without a third party integration, such as FasterLaw, is cumbersome. Clio's own integrations with Office365 for emails and calendaring remain a work in progress.

Alternatives Considered

CosmoLex and Rocket Matter

Reasons for Choosing Clio

At the time I decided to look at alternatives, in 2017, the product was getting worse, not better.

Reasons for Switching to Clio

Largest user base and least likely to get assimilated or go out of business, forcing another vendor change.

Pros

Clio makes it easy to manage a case beginning to end. All of the client information is contained in one place. We can work on documents right in Clio and share documents to the client through the Clio Portal. Clients can safely upload their documents to us via the portal. We can communicate with clients through the portal or text messaging right in Clio. The Clio Support team is very helpful and has taken our enhancement requests back, some of which have already been implemented. We are able to keep everyone at the firm on track by using the task feature of Clio. There is no more wondering what is happening in a case because everything is tracking and tasked.

Cons

Our clients pay a monthly payment until their flat fee is paid in full. My current enhancement request is for Clio to have payment plan details written out on the client invoice. Currently we have to type this information out in the footer notes.

Pros

Responsiveness, knowledge, professionalism, and follow-up of their Customer Service representatives.

Cons

Cost and Client connection is cumbersome.

Pros

I have nothing positive to say about Clio at this time. Integrating our firm into their software was a major learning experience, which will guide me with the next software I choose.

Cons

The items added in the time that we have been with Clio have caused no improvement to our use of the product, although they use these additions as an excuse for raising their prices significantly. The "client portal" that they added does not even allow you to see if clients have viewed documents, which their old version did. Their new payment system only adds to their profits, so why would they utilize that as an excuse to pass on additional costs to their clients?

Alternatives Considered

Rocket Matter and CARET Legal

Reasons for Switching to Clio

Even though Clio was more expensive than our other final possible choices, we were made representations about what this software could do that exceeded the other offerings in assistance with our needs. However, once we started with Clio, we were immediately told that some of those representations were not functions of Clio at all.

Pros

All I need to do is turn on Clio in the morning and press the button to start the timing if I feel lazy to casually type a few words. It is possible to see how far behind or ahead of budget I am in terms of jobs, payments and invoicing. There is some repetition (database skills), and he has another colleague to manage the data for him when he is on vacation and doesn't have Clio, but these are minor quibbles.

Cons

This feature is likely to be useful in many people's practices, but I don't use it. Clio must find a way to accommodate all the documents that have a certain name that I can access through Clio. On the contrary, I use Hazel and Dropbox.

Pros

Clio is always adapting to improve and take feature requests into consideration while balancing innovation with consistency of interface and only incremental changes so as to not frustrate the user experience with too many changes all the ones. Beyond the tech, right from the beginning many years ago Clio stood out in customer service in terms of being very responsive, striving to find a solution to every problem where available, and being straight up in simply admitting that they don't have certain features developed yet and it's not available rather than trying to do a sales job or sugarcoat the fact that there will always be limitations in software meeting everyone's different needs perfectly. It's a very stable platform, secure, and the developers are even aware to do any sort of systemwide updates during times of low usage.

Cons

Maybe not so much a specific Clio issue, but rather mostly us as a user limited capacity challenge, there are many integrations and improvements which we could be adapting into our system but have just become stalled in locking the bandwidth. Quarterly or semiannually review (soft audit) of how each business such as ours is using the software would be beneficial with a systems person from Clio providing a couple recommendations of next steps that our group could take that would have a significant impact on better utilizing the tools.

Alternatives Considered

Amicus Cloud and PCLaw

Reasons for Choosing Clio

Customer Service #1 for Clio and Amicus had very poor customer service, constantly just providing the same solution (clear our cache lol) and the problems were so much greater. PCLaw was expensive and too resource intensive to make remote work impossible. Both had challenges trying to be desktop solutions moving into the Cloud whereas Clio was born and created in the Cloud, right when I was moving my practice into the Cloud and had previous poor experiences. In 2012 the Law Society of Alberta advised at that time I was the most cloud computing law practice in Canada and when I came across Clio in 2013/14ish I recognized its superiority compared to past experiences.

Switched From

Amicus Cloud and PCLaw

Reasons for Switching to Clio

Contemporary, ease of interface, intuitive and I could identify that they were just getting warmed up with more features coming.

Pros

There is no such thing as a perfect legal case management software. There is nothing that is going to do everything the way you want it and Clio is no different. However, clio has numerous thrid party integrations. If this software doesn't do something there is probably something else out there that will fill in the gaps. However, what really makes clio great is its easy to use Open API. I have a saying with automation. Where there is a will there is a way and this API makes that possible. If there is something you want to have done or want to automate Clio's open API makes it possible.

Cons

There reporting could use some work although they have made some improvements. Some of their bigger improvements can take a lot of time. However, there are always making consistent and regular improvements. It does seem like at times they will make a partial release but complete release or complete functionality can take a back seat.

Alternatives Considered

CosmoLex, MyCase, Actionstep, Tabs3 and Centerbase

Reasons for Choosing Clio

Amicus Attorney got bought by Abacus Next and service went downhill. There were MANY improvements that were needed to the product but they were slow to update and there were a lot of integrations and features missing. I switched to clio because I knew I could get it to do what I wanted within reason by use of integrations and their open API.

Switched From

Amicus Attorney

Reasons for Switching to Clio

The easy to use open api and robust list of thrid party integrations

Pros

I was first introduced to Clio eight years ago at the ABA Tech Conference. I knew from the moment I saw it that it would revolutionize our practice, allowing us to work from anywhere yet stay on the same page, streamline our management of cases, and make the process easier for our clients, from following their case to being able to pay invoices online or through their phone. And I was right. Clio has done that for us and more.

Cons

Document Management was something that was missing for a long time, but Clio is improving there too. We hope to be able to get rid of our current document management system and transition to Clio Drive soon.

Pros

Great bang for the buck. Clio is a full suite of software for time entries, billing, trust account management, contact management, and document organization. Out clients love the ability to upload documents securely for us to use in their matters. Ability to access through a web browser makes it easy to work from anywhere as well.

Cons

Slight learning curve to get used to the new software after having used Amicus for almost 20 years. Small hiccups in transitioning our Amicus database over, BUT it was solved in a timely manner and we were able to clean up a few other items on our own.

Pros

The various integrations and how they tied in with my cases

Cons

Features were a bit confusing and not all inclusive

Pros

For us the program has changed everything in the workflow to the better. In our opinion Clio’s forte is how flexible it is. Every law firm has its own different way of organizing workflow and Clio can accommodate for that, at least our whims and quirks which we have abundant of. The program is like potty in your hand. You mold and sculp the program according to your own special needs in the workflow. The only barrier is your own imagination. You decide how information is inserted, in what order and form and how it is presented. You make your own work procedures. You can organize and make chains of tasks beforehand and set the relevant type of chain of tasks to fit the case you are working on. Then, there and now, the future workflow is decided and set for that case.

Cons

You can not copy matters/cases and clients. It is not easy to move data fram TM to clio. We decided not to to it. Integration between outlook calander and clio calander does not work, it is so slow it is not usable. But the integration between google cal and clio cal is excellent.

Alternatives Considered

Lawcus, App4Legal, Matters.Cloud, Osprey Approach and Uptime Cloud Monitoring

Reasons for Choosing Clio

Time Matters is old fashioned, originally written for DOS and has restrictions therefore. Does not offer any real cloud solution only remote desktope.

Reasons for Switching to Clio

Clio is flexible. Very stapple and predictable. Clio is easy to manage and learn. Excellent support. Handles non english characters well.

Pros

Easy to use, customer support is awesome, helpful tutorial videos and great client experience. I have received multiple compliments on the style and ease of paying on-line.

Cons

It was not syncing with QuickBooks when posting to CLIO but that may have been addressed recently. I need to check with my bookkeeper.

Alternatives Considered

Rocket Matter

Reasons for Choosing Clio

Constant issues from an IT stand point. Not as user friendly

Reasons for Switching to Clio

I asked around and even had CLIO provide me with a referral in my area of practice so I could see how they liked it and if there were any issues. I confirmed CLIO was a solid company and would be around. The Florida Bar indorsement was also key.

Pros

Functionality is nearly universal while specially and jusisdiction costomization is great.
Easy law firm branding and pre sale marketing is brilliant.
Support is outstanding and the Premium Support even better for speedy, live agent help.
Cost is reasonable and many available plans on their menu of options.
Clio grows nicely with solid feature burstsoften free to it's users.
Excellent and often updated/enlarged mobile App across all usual platforms: Appke, Android, Windows...
Superior online instant pay clientbinvoucing, and client trust account requests
The wide assortment of excellent and Rock solid 3rd party software affiliations is very impresdive.

Cons

I was fortunate to have free help migrating my existing, Timeslips database compiled over many years but it ain't quite so free today...Also, I'm still not a fan of the communications tools for clients and othes not subscribed to Clio.

Pros

Time entries can be imported by batch. Trust Requests and Bills can be emailed w/payment link directly from Clio. Past Due Bills can be "shared" with a coupled clicks versus printing out and mailing or using another app to email it.

Cons

1. When looking at a past due bill (and additional bills have been issued and remain unpaid for that same matter) the Outstanding Balance on the Statement of Account section will update and include the balance due for that matter as of the current date + any open Trust Replenishment requests instead of the balance due for that invoice + the balance due of all invoices issued previously to that one.
2. Evergreen Retainers - I keep getting calls from clients saying they can't view the "Shared" invoice when I have applied Trust funds that covered the whole balance. They can see the Trust Request to replenish funds used/applied to an invoice, but they can't see the actual invoice and review what was billed. I have to print the invoice to PDF and go to my email app and send from there.
3. I would like to see a report that shows that various billing rates per timekeeper for each client/matter.

Pros

Clio offers nearly comprehensive lead and case management services. Their support staff is responsive and if you engage them in a conversation about your firm's needs - they are eager to listen & learn. Since I began using it, Clio has steadily widened their offerings that are real value-adds. Their annual conference is a great networking & learning event.

Cons

Both products, but Grow especially, are very time-consuming in the initial set-up phase. Both products could be more robust for practice areas that don't involve litigation. Their support staff is readily available but in my experience can only assist in solving my issue about 10% of the time. Often some features I view as key are not available and it's hard to determine how the upvoting process of feature requests actually works. The pricing structure is frustrating and could benefit from adding a different tier for restricted or limited users (like paralegals and admins). While all the features and new additions are nice, as a solo practice attorney I often find myself unable to take advantage of them due to the time involved in learning about & implementing them.

Alternatives Considered

CosmoLex and MyCase

Reasons for Switching to Clio

Interaction with the sales reps and recommendations from fellow attorneys.

Pros

The single best part about Clio is the user interface. You can't overestimate the drain on your organization and your end-users by poor UX design. Clio is intuitive to use, and easy to customize. Their chat support is the best of any product I've used, in any category.

Cons

The in-app document management isn't great. It's good enough, but most users will want to integrate with an existing DMS.

Alternatives Considered

CosmoLex and Actionstep

Reasons for Choosing Clio

Cosmolex had a less intuitive UI and didn't allow for batch changes, which makes it hard to iterate and improve. Actionstep has great automation potential, but didn't allow me to charge a second sales tax which is mandatory in my jurisdiction.

Switched From

CosmoLex and Actionstep

Pros

The software is easy to use and understand. The transition to Clio from our previous system was relatively seamless and the customer service is fantastic. I like that we can share documents with our clients and are able to see what date and time a client viewed each document. It is also extremely convenient to have our documents stored in Clio so that they can be viewed when we are not physically in the office.

Cons

It would be nice if you could integrate notes from a contact directly into a new matter as you are opening one. Currently, I have to copy and paste each note from the contact into the matter notes. Also, when I put in messages for Mr. Chefalo on people he needs to call back I make a task for him. When he views the tasks on his cell phone, it would be nice if he could simple tap on the phone number in the task and have it directly call the number as opposed to him having to type the number in on his cell phone to make the call. Finally, a client suggested that it would be nice if he had the option to opt in to receiving text messages from Clio any time we share a document with him or generate a bill on his matter.

Pros

The ability to integrate other software enable using other software to address aspects of Clio which are good, but not great. As an example, Clio Management's task management is good, but there is not a kanban or gantt feature, but I can easily integrate with Asana, Monday.com, etc.

Cons

Some aspects address needs in a basic manner, but are not as robust as software which is specifically designed for a single purpose. Using the same example as mentioned in the "Pros" - the task management works and can be automated, but it does not have highly specific features such as kanban or gantt.Additionally, the syncing between Clio Grow and Clio Manage could improve. The two do not sync completely - certain items (ex. emails, I believe) do not sync.Lastly, when trying to export specific sets of data, Clio is time-consuming. We had an attorney who left our firm, and providing her the information from her clients required going to each client and selecting "export" for each aspect of the clients' data (such as, emails, documents, contacts, transactions, etc.)

Alternatives Considered

PracticePanther Legal Software

Reasons for Choosing Clio

Cosmolex is not intuitive. It took a long time for me to become comfortable with the system, and it was not worth the time and energy for getting additional people up to speedMyCase was more intuitive, but lacked integrations which could have enabled better automation than MyCase had.

Switched From

CosmoLex and MyCase

Pros

As a solo practicing attorney for almost a quarter century, tracking time, preparing and sending out bills has been my least favorite activity, and the place where I have lost revenue and had upset clients. My experience is that clients don't appreciate it when bills are sent timely or when they receive billing after six to twelve months of work - they really prefer regular billing.

Clio has revolutionized the billing and collection part of my solo practice environment. Now that I have learned how to create clients and matters and to input time, it is a simple once a month task to create professional monthly client bills which I can print and snail mail, email, or send with the LawPay connection and the client can "click through" the email bill to pay with credit card.

Cons

I cannot figure out how to set up or use the form template function. When I have tried it does not really work and I have stopped trying to use this. I would very much like to create some form engagement letters.

My work is mainly transaction, not so much litigation. At first it was difficult to figure out how to prepare a nice looking flat-fee for a project type bill. However, with the updates I have been able to customize bills to have both hourly fee bills and flat-fee bills.

Pros

The Clio platform was very easy to implement with our firm's daily usage. The onboarding process was smooth and the learning and transition for staff were easy. The software is meeting our firm's needs on a daily basis. I also appreciate that they listen to suggestions and continue to improve and add features throughout the year. Clio has allowed our monthly billing process to go from a day-long process to an hour process.

Cons

Some of the reporting features need to be fine-tuned or added to. My biggest pet peeve is the limit of 50 items to a page, so you update to 200 but it defaults back to 50 every time you move around between pages.

Pros

Clio integrates with so much other software to make your life easier that is just can't be beat. Saving emails via Outlook, generating document templates, collecting e-signatures on engagement agreements—whatever you need, Clio has it.

I can also run billing, monitor bill payments, and overall run the entire law firm with minimal effort, minimal time commitment, and with confidence that everything is running smoothly.

Cons

There are some smaller points that can drive you insane. For example, you cannot customize the look of the emails that go out when you share matters, bill, etc. with your clients. If you—like me—transition from a solo practitioner to running a small law firm, you will eventually need to open new bank accounts. Clio will not let you eliminate the old bank accounts and start from scratch. You can't even force the old bank accounts to be otherwise "invisible" to the system so that you cannot accidentally record money moving into a defunct account. This is a minor complaint, but man does it drive me insane.

I also still want to see a task assignment that allows me to set a supervisor for each assigned task.

Alternatives Considered

PracticePanther Legal Software, MyCase and Rocket Matter

Reasons for Switching to Clio

Much better integrations with 3rd parties and a willingness to continue adding new integrations.

Pros

Clio is quite robust with many functions geared for law offices. Much of the thrust is for multiple lawyer offices ( which makes sense) and some also work for solo firms (my office is a solo office). There is a forms component which is poorly integrated with Clio. It does allow you to create an online fillable form - but the steps to have that information fed into your database for the practice is cumbersome and not intuitive. Yo are using two independent programs - which is unlike both Practicve Panther and My Case. In the other two the feed into the database is direct - no two programs - no multiple steps to move rom one database to another.

Cons

As mentioned, the multiple step s needed to use the forms - and the cost for that portion of the platform - make this a terrible choice. If you want to use forms as questionares and to populate your database - and update the database - by client input - this is definitely NOT the platform to use.

Pros

Thought was put into the billing and time capture capabilities of the software. Great implementation with Google Drive and the advertising tracking is a brilliant idea. Actually, the entire software package is well designed and has tremendous potential. But...

Cons

But the implementation of all this is not good. The click flow of the user interface is very cumbersome. Basic tasks require far too many user interactions and it is not streamlined. Reporting is basic and requires .CSV dumps of data to recover meaningful information such as a summary of collections in a month for all staff broken down by time keepers.

The Quickbooks implementation is a disaster. Trust Account sync creates a journal entry for each debit/credit to your trust bank account whenever you add funds to trust or use trust account to pay a bill. This is all well and good except that in Quickbooks, journal entries are a separate line in the ledger. That results in two lines in the ledger for each transaction. My firm deposits thousands of dollars into our trust account daily and this quickly generates a maze of transactions in our accounts. Where this is more problematic when we do batch deposits because well we don't have just one client a day. So now when I need to reconcile my accounts I need to then go sum up all journal entries and ensure the accounting is correct.

Even worse is when writing a disbursement from Trust it seems that the same journal entry process is used to create the draft. The problem is that I cannot print a journal entry from Quickbooks, so we need to hand write the check. Support tells me the work around for this is to deactivate the sync feature and enter the check in Quickbooks manually.

Pros

Easy to use -- calendaring, opening new matters, time entries, notes, billing. I like the interface, the way it looks. Program includes trust accounting. Can include/integrate credit card billing as an option which I did, and works well. Have used Law Pay for a while and it integrates through Clio. Send out invoices through Clio, client can click on button to make credit card payment, and have option to have program automatically apply to open invoices when payment comes in -- get email notifications of payments. Very satisfied with the program -- does what I need and enjoy using.

Cons

I don't think it's a negative factor, but don't use the mobile app much, for whatever that means. Tend to just check my iphone calendar (I use Office 365 to integrate, other options also I think like Google to integrate -- Clio integrates with Office 365 and iphone calendar will show Office and Google calendar events). There is a new beta version of the mobile app available for use that looked at today and I like -- I could see using that to make entries if I need while out of the office, but usually just do all of that at my computer in the office.

Pros

It being cloud-based and the app for my phone

Cons

Clio Payments is very problematic. CLIO Payments has been holding client payments that the clients authorized to be deposited into an attorney trust account. When the bank that the deposits were directed to refused to received them - CLIO did not refund them. I requested that the refund the clients since the money cannot go into that trust account b/c of issues with the bank. CLIO Payments says that it cannot refund money deposited to a trust account despite the fact that they have never deposited those funds into any trust account. CLIO Payments has taken possession of the client funds and will not release them or refund them back to the clients. This is a HUGE professional ethics problem for an attorney. They are oblivious and do not care about the impossible situation they are perpetuating for my business. Maybe they are making money on that money while they are holding it where it cannot be accessed and used for the client's benefit. DO NOT USE CLIO Payments - use LAWPAY.